Emiya Harry
by starjaunter
Summary: Abandoned by his people at the moment of his greatest need, 15 month old Harry is found by the world famous Magus Killer, who decides that maybe he can truly Save someone for the first time. Harry is the age Shirou would be but since he is found before the Grail War he spends time being raised with the Einzbern family as well as Kiritsugu before going to attend school at Hogwarts.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Fate/Stay Night_

_Drip._

_Drip._

_Drip._

_The dreamer had enough training as a magus to keep small part of his mind lucid during a dream. That part was now concerned that if this dream continued too long he would wet his bed._

_The perspective shifted, not to focus on the sound of dripping, but to the ripples forming on a fluidic surface as drops of the same fluid fall upon it._

_The drips came with smooth, and almost relentless, regularity and precision. Each drip followed another, in exactly the same size and shape and location. The spacing in time between drips was regulated so that the ripples formed a pattern that lacked the chaos inherit in such a system. It relaxed the dreamer on a deep level, and he realized it was representative of himself._

_Suddenly a loud clamor occurred off in this distance outside the field of his perception, but he could perceive a massive ripple, almost a wave, cresting towards his nice orderly ripples of self. The seemed to be growing as it approached the self-ripples and it soon overlapped them and threw their orderly patterns into chaos. As the wave began to intersect with the focal point of the self-ripples, a wire-frame clock appeared to overlay the scene and slowed to nearly, but not quite, stillness, seeming to slow the movement of the entire dream, including the ripples of self, at the same time._

_As the clock faded the movement of the chaotic ripples continued in slow motion. In that slow motion he could interpret new patterns in the chaos that followed as his pattern intersected some great event. In the pattern that followed he could sense just a hint of something that seemed somehow better than the previous orderly self._

_As the dreamer focused he felt the dream begin to dissolve but before it faded he made out a greater beauty to follow, something more naturally resonant with his inner most spirit than the orderly ripples of self his dream had begun with._

_He gained a profound sense that the greatest aspect this interaction was... Choice..._

Kiritsugu snapped awake in a rush, blinking rapidly to clear his eyes of the dream,... vision? He glanced over and found his wife, Iri, to still be asleep.

She lay there as beautiful as the first time he layed eyes on her, palest of skin and snow-white hair. She had only been with him four years, truly had only existed as a being for four years, and had already given him a family, however painful that sometimes was. Considering how without personality she was in the beginning and almost all her human contact was with Kiritsugu, a relatively jaded man by human standards, it was truly shocking how full of life and emotion she was. Indeed, she was so different from him. She had an elegance and grace that came from the artificial knowledge implanted during her creation, but as only 4 years old she still had a child-like innocence any other adult with her knowledge would have long lost.

Kiritsugu turned to consider the ceiling as he pondered his dream once more. Having these precognitive experiences was not impossible, he had had a few before in the years since he acquired a piece of the Emiya family crest with the help of his mentor, Natalia. A family's crest was important, not just because it gave a power boost to the head of the family that actually got to implant it, but because it contained a crystallized form of the mysteries that were the focus for the family's research. Most families would focus on one aspect of magecraft to exploit and to delve and they would incorporate that research into their crest so that future family members could progress further and further into their research with each generation. That crest of the Emiya family had only existed for a few generations, but he knew his father had treasured it beyond the relatively small size he had inherited should have indicated. His father, Emiya Noritaka, had been so desperate to explore the depths of that crest that he explored the damnation of vampirism, just to gain more time in which to research the odd affinity for time granted by the Emiya Crest.

Due to the Sealing Designation place on his father, Emiya had only managed to inherit a small fraction of the family crest, a mere 8 circuits out of the 40 his father had. He also had received no notes or training from his father, other than an odd rant overheard by a child. Thus he knew only that the Crest increased his affinity for time magic, giving him occasional visions as insight that were so vague as to be almost useless.

He preferred to predict the future by planning so well that the outcome was assured. He had developed a spell called 'Time Alter' that let him speed up or slow down his personal interaction with time. He had no idea if that was what it should be used for considering the side affects he suffered, but it was all he could get out of it at the moment.

Kiritsugu decided to get up, while he would not dwell on his vision, it only made sense to at least give it some consideration. He did not want to disturb his wife though.

The so-called fifth head of the Emiya family got dressed and headed out onto the veranda. He snorted to himself as the thought crossed his mind. Considering his father was more worried about lengthening his lifespan to conduct research rather than actually accomplishing it, and what research the family did have wasn't accessible to him, he could hardly call himself something as accomplished as the fifth head of a family, despite the fact that most noteworthy families wouldn't have been impressed by even that much. Family's weren't considered notable until they reached seven generations and even that was only acceptable if the generations had accomplished more to advance their mysteries than his father or he had.

Several hours of sitting on the veranda in the fresh and crisp, very crisp seeing as it was late October in a mountainous forest, left Emiya Kiritsugu longing for a smoke, it had been years after all. Here he was, one of the world's deadliest assassins boring himself out his mind by considering a drippy faucet dream. He was known as the Magus Killer for his capacity to combine brutally efficient mundane methods with mystical techniques. It ensured he could take out almost anyone as the security of the non-magical was vulnerable to his magic and the Magi of the world seemed even more vulnerable to non-mystical means. It had even earned him this psuedo family with a wife and daughter with the noble Einzbern family, but here he was leaning out the balcony of the Einzbern mansion wishing the smokes available nearby were even worth trying to sneak.

Just as he was about to go back in and check on Iri, he saw the eighth head of the Einzbern family, Jubstachteit von Einzbern, or as Emiya knew him, old man Acht, walk out unto the balcony as well. In this case, eight was pretty noteworthy as each head of the Einzbern had ruled for at least a hundred years. Emiya didn' t know the exact number, but he suspected Jubstachteit was closer to two hundred by now.

The two men stared out over the autumn mountain scape, the riots of yellows, oranges, and reds in the distance, interlaced heavily with evergreen, and a mystically preserved green mansion's grounds nearby.

"You're bored," flatly stated the patriarch of the family to which he had tied himself.

"Hmm? What gave me away?"

The old bas- ... Man just gave a soft snort put a small box on the rail, the sound it made as it landed let you know it was very heavy. "Deliver that," he commanded with glint in his eye.

Emiya glanced at the box and recognized the patterns, "Alchemically prepared metals, quite high quality. Who can afford the best the Einzbern family has to offer?" asked the Magus Killer, not letting his curiosity show on his face.

"No one, of course, you are trading this for a similar package of alchemically enriched clay from a family that specializes in crafting such," informed the head Einzbern Magus.

Kiritsugu questioned sardonically, "And how does this relieve my boredom?"

"I thought that allowing you to begin preparations nine years before the war would be a good way to help you create advantages and gain your full strength for the upcoming Heaven's Feel Ritual. While I have seen your planning and am pleased at the advantages you have created for my families position in the war I have become concerned about you increasing your strength. Rather than growing stronger, instead it seems to have slowed your progress these last four years, and I fear if I do nothing you will become useless by the time the war starts."

"I probably am a little rusty, but how does making simple deliveries help?" asked Emiya.

"Because your contact, Charlus Potter, is an old acquaintance of mine, I have known him for nearly 100 years, and these last few years are the longest that we have ever been out of contact." The Einzbern Head continued, "I fear he is lost. Investigate, help if you can, trade if you find things well, and report your findings back to me."

The eighth head of the Einzbern then left Kiritsugu to his own devices.

"Looks like I have a mission to England. I'll have to remember to pick up a souvenir for Ilya," mused Kiritsugu before setting about his plans.

_Later..._

Getting off the plane in London was as hectic as always, despite being a Tuesday. He truly despised London, such a cold a dreary place. The structure of the city was chaotic and hard to find your way around. Worst of all of course was that it was the headquarters of the Clocktower. A major part of the Mage Association and the ones that generally hated him the most. Thus London contained the greatest number of people who wanted him dead per capita.

Such is the price of earning a title like Magus Killer he supposed.

He made his way through the streets of the town, the dull cloudy sky did nothing to distract him from the large number of people who seemed to dress like the most out-of-date Clocktower mages he had ever seen. They all seemed terribly exuberant considering the weather and how off putting they were to the other Londoners.

A quick spell to grant himself thermal vision, he preferred to use goggles or a scope but the spell was easier to conceal, and he saw that the oddly dressed people had the slightly higher than normal body temperatures of a magus using minor spells.

'Wonder what's got the locals wandering around so, it's not like the Mage Association to allow this sort of thing,' Kiritsugu thought to himself.

He chalked up the mystery as something to solve later if he had more time and avoid the disturbing magi in the meantime. He moved out towards the outskirts of town towards the village where the Potter Mansion was supposed to lie.

Despite his keen eyes he missed the numerous owls that we're swooping about unnaturally.

It was just around lunchtime when he got to the village nearest the Potter home and decided to stop for a bite to eat. In the small, cozy diner he saw a group of the oddly dressed mages talking about something they probably shouldn't have in public.

..."So it was old Charlus's grandson?" asked a particularly geriatric looking magus. This immediately caught Emiya's attention considering he was here to find a 'Charlus.' The next oldest looking replied, "Yep, would have done the old man proud if he were still with us, too bad about James and his wife though, I wonder who will take care of the tyke now?"

The oldest look like he might have responded but the younger ones interrupted with talk about how things would be different now and they started discussing there plans for the future and Emiya learned nothing else.

'Hmm, so both my contact and the one likely to be his son and heir are gone already,' pondered Emiya. 'Well, I'll check the mansion anyway, and then make sure the boy is being taken care of.'

The assassin walked up to the mansion that everyone non-magical seemed to ignore. It was a nice place, not on the level of the Einzbern, but better than the territory of some of the other magi families for which he had worked. Lots of statues, especially gargoyles, 'Probably guardians of some type,' he thought to himself.

He spent an hour analyzing the bounded fields in the place. None were very high quality but there were a lot of them. Acht had mentioned that they had little in the way of magic circuits, they concentrated on Alchemy, which did not require magical circuits as opposed to modern thaumatuergy. As the foremost Alchemists, the Einzbern had some respect for them. With less raw power in each spell they seem to have gone with many weak spells, with each generation adding a few layers so defenses grew with time.

Most of his analysis was deciding it wasn't a trap. Beyond anything else, slipping through bounded fields was really his specialty, so he shut down only one of the dozens of minor fields and corrupted two others and was in within minutes. It was actually harder for him than other fields he encountered as it took some time to figure outit he interactions between the various fields.

A normal magus would have taken hours or even days, as they would have to collapse all the fields, the hour he spent was to make sure it wasn't a trap, not to figure out how to get by it. The only fields that were hard to penetrate we're those that had dozens of fields where each was made to be strong and designed to support each other rather than simply exist near each other. So far only the Einzbern had the best, and he had been teaching them how to spot the weaknesses and remove them.

As he got in the door without triggering any statuary guards, he was immediately accosted by a small goblin-like creature.

"Who are you to enter the House of Potter!" shrieked the little thing, its head and flopping ears shaking around and pointing a hand at Kiritsugu as if to release a burst of power.

'Terrific,' Emiya thought, 'Guardian creatures of some type, surviving the master's death.' The Magus Killer kept one hand on a gun in his coat but decided to try and talk his way out.

"I am a representative of Jubstachteit von Einzbern, acquaintance of Charlus Potter, who sent me to investigate after so long without word," Emiya said,trying to be reasonable.

The little creature immediately seemed ready to ignore him, "I know of no Jub.. Jub, ache...".

"But I have," an older version of the same creature appeared walking down the hall with a crooked looking wooden can, upon which he seemed to be relying on heavily.

"Calm down Dixie, we have a guest, one who our master would have traded with if do not miss my guess as to the contents of that box."

Kiritsugu shifted the box of precious alchemical metals in his hand. "Yeah," Emiya acknowledged, "if things had been alright I was supposed to trade this for some of the Potter's special clay."

"No reason not to do so anyway," the old beast said before clicking his fingers. This immediately caused the other, Dixie, to pop away with a crack. Seconds later it popped back with another box almost as ornate as the one from the Einzbern.

"Master Charlus had prepared a batch or two before his passing," the older goblin creature explained, "with Master James gone, no one is likely to use this before its powers begin to fade. The metal of the Einzbern will last for decades, hopefully young Master Harry will be back before it fades as well."

A thought occurred to Kiritsugu. "Will you lot be okay without a master until Harry returns?"

A wry, sad grin appeared on the face of the elder, while Dixie was just plain sad. "Actually no, we never formally bonded with Master Harry. With the death of Master James the clock has started ticking. Ten, maybe fifteen years for a few of us, and we will all be dead."

Dixie burst in, "And the House will fall into disarray! Poor, poor Master Harry! The condition he will find his home in by the time he inherits!"

Emiya pondered the situation for a moment, while Dixie settled down. "OldAcht asked me to help if I could, so I will stick around until Harry's guardianship is decided. I can make sure they know to bring him here before too much time passes. Besides, how will he learn the Alchemy that the Einzbern respect so much without coming and reviewing the family library?"

"Hmm, a valid point," the old creature once more clicked his fingers and a couple books appeared in his hands. "Training in Alchemy should start early if he is to uphold the name of Potter. These tomes are not terribly valuable in case you turn out untrustworthy, but should be enough to get Harry through until he turns eleven and the start of Hogwarts."

Emiya took the tomes, probably generic primers by the standard of the Einzbern, but would be of value to any family without the history of Alchemy behind them."Hogwarts, what's that?"

A chuckle from the old creature, "You really are from far away aren't you? Hogwarts is the school most higher class magical families in Britain send their children to. It starts at eleven, and lasts seven years. Anyway, get those books to Harry and have his guardians make sure he learns the material well before starting Hogwarts. If he has the Potter aptitude, unlike his father, this will get him started and he can research more at Hogwarts or come here and pick up some intermediate books to study himself." The old beast seemed to ponder a moment before another click of fingers produced a compass device. "This will track the nearest of Potter blood, which, at this point, can only be Harry. Take it and find him."

"I will, I hope to see you again someday old man," Emiya said with more respect than he usually showed old Acht.

A snort from the old beast, "Shoo, off with you child. As we cannot leave until a new Master binds us, we depend on you to save us and the honor of the House of Potter."

'Damn that old thing knows how to push the guilt button.' the Magus Killer thought as he saluted jauntily and headed out to find the young Master Harry.

_Hours of tracking later..._

Kiritsugu approached the location indicating where Harry should appear. He had spent time tracking him but he was apparently moving at roughly vehicular speeds across the country.

Emiya had put in a call to one of the minor contacts in the bureaucracy he had and discovered that Lily Potter used to be Lily Evans. Lilly Evans had a sister who had married a Vernon Dursley.

Getting the address of Number 4 Privet Drive was child's play. After confirming Harry was indeed moving in the correct direction he decided to stake out the joint, using the scope and shotgun mike on his Walther rifle to look for trouble, such as followers of this Dark Lord looking for revenge.

When he heard a soft crack up the street he almost shot the magus that appeared.

When the cat turned into a female magus his jaw dropped, that was some serious power these two were showing.

When he overheard the story he had to resist letting his teeth grind.

He was in more than a little disbelief when the gigantic man on a flying motorcycle appear. To take a baby cross country in that. He wouldn't let Iri call him irresponsible with Illya ever again.

But the worst, the worst of all, was when that old codger put the baby on the stoop with a letter and walked away. Emiya was about to put a bullet in him and damn the consequences.

"Good luck, Harry," he heard the odd looking man murmur before he turn on his heel, swished his cloak and disappeared with a small crack.

"Damn," he swore softly.

He briefly reinforced himself and jumped down from the roof he was on.

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet drive as Kiritsugu ghosted near where the small boy named Harry lay. Without waking, the boy rolled over and clutched a letter beside him.

The assassin pondered the boy, what he overheard after arriving, and his current situation.

A powerful being using the worst of magic to terrorize and kill and yet somehow failed to finish this child. To lose his parents and be raised by non-magicals, he supposed simply because he would be considered a legend from day one with his peers. Scarred forever by the power that killed his parents. A child with a family legacy that would go unfulfilled if raised as this Dumbledore person planned.

Emiya Kiritsugu remembered the young man, a mere boy really, whose father was a monster who committed the most heinous of acts in pursuit of his Mysteries. A boy who helped to kill his own father for those crimes and went on to become an assassin to remove others like him and save as many people of the world as possible.

The Magus Killer watched the door of the home for a few minutes and decided. He picked up the child who was already a Legendary Magus Killer of his own right and promised, "I will save you."

He moved on, leaving no evidence behind that either Magus Killer was ever there.

Indeed, he had an appointment with a fuzzy, old goblin to make if he was to keep his promises.

His last thought as he made his way back to the Potter House was, 'I wonder if Ilya will consider a little brother as a suitable souvenir.'...

_In Dumbledore's office the next morning_

Dumbledore immediately went to the silver monitoring devices he had set up to track Harry Potter and analyze the wards. While they showed he was in fine health, Dumbledore was growing concerned that the ones indicating the special blood wards he had set up, the ones that would reflect the power of his mother's sacrifice as long as Harry was loved by and considered himself at home with a blood relative. He knew Petunia had jealousy issues regarding her sister Lily, but surely she would come to quickly love her baby nephew. Dumbledore was sure in the strength of his ward and more sure in the strength of love, so it must be the monitoring devices. Yes, the connection must not have set up properly.

Oh well, it would have been nice to monitor young Harry in this way, but between his faith in both himself and in the power of love, he had no reason to fret unduly.

Author Notes

First story I am posting is a crossover of Potterverse and Nasuverse. Both Magi and Wizarding folk exist in the world but remain as hidden from each other as they are from muggles. Kiritsugu Emiya happens to be close enough to observe the abandoning of Harry and chooses to save and adopt him, instead of Shirou later on.

Revision on 03-23-13: one reviewer made the valid comment that Kiritsugu should be more reserved and I decided to redo some things to make it so.


	2. Chapter 2

Note: I do not own Harry Potter, Type-Moon, or in this chapter Mage: the Awakening.

_Chapter Two_

_Alchemy, or Transmutation as it sometimes called, is related to but has a great deal of differences from the practice of Transfiguration, or Alteration as it sometimes called._

_Transfiguration involves the addition and removal of concepts from an existing object until it is completely different through spellwork. For instance, taken to the extreme, a simple rock may be turned into a living animal and back, in some cases surpassing a lack of actual mass with which to work. While it demands great skills, power and imagination to properly use Transfiguration it is ultimately a limited art as the changes can fade or, even if seemingly permanent, can be dispelled by another magic user._

_Alchemy though involves truly changing the original material or the reagent as we call it in the Potter parlance into a product. Chemical reactions in mundane science involve two or more reagents reacting. But in Alchemy at least one of the reagents is replaced with the skill and magic of the Alchemist. This is in addition to the alchemical knowledge needed to even prepare the reaction. Another reagent with concentrated magical properties, called a catalyst, can be used to empower the product with its properties._

_Therefore, achieving a given effect in Alchemy requires almost twice as much knowledge, training, and practice as it would be with other kinds of magic. However, alchemy can achieve effects impossible to other forms of magic. The most notable of which is infusing magical properties from a catalytic reagent that are thenceforth considered a natural part of the product material. No more need for reinforcing a spell or risk of a spelled material dispelling because the alchemical product is truly changed or transmuted._

_When Alchemical products or other natural magical items are used as reagents, the final product can be considered something noteworthy, indeed..._

Kiritsugu closed the tome of Alchemical lore he was perusing and looked over at the boy sleeping in the seat next to him. Reading the books he began to understand why both the house-elves said Harry should learn at least the basics of alchemy before starting a school to learn more traditional magecraft and why the Einzbern always seemed to do so poorly at non-alchemical magecraft. If alchemy was harder than magecraft than you either had to start earlier and work harder or forgo trying to learn another form of magecraft in order to concentrate on alchemy.

To keep the boy from missing out on his heritage he would have to make sure he trained in alchemy early. While he would be useless for such a thing, he would have the best possible mother and sister. A homunculus that had all the alchemical expertise of the Einzbern installed at creation and a daughter who seems to have inherited the knowledge as well.

However this train of thought would have to wait a bit as the plane was landing and it was time to make his way to the Einzbern mansion and convince them to accept this little surprise.

Harry happened to be awake and clinging to his neck like a monkey when Emiya arrived at the Einzbern Mansion. Harry was looking all around himself with those vivid green eyes of his. This place was more elaborate than the Potter mansion by far, and from what he had gathered Harry had been raised in a more modest home and hadn't even seen the Potter mansion until Kiritsugu had taken him to bind the house-elves last night.

Emiya nodded to the homunculus guards as they passed through the door. The artificially created beings with their red eyes were practically a trademark of the family. They were fully sentient, with all the skills they needed artificially implanted and their whole bodies over clocked in comparison to a normal person or even a magus. A combat model could take on an army of average level mages. They paid for it though, as they only lived a few years before their bodies failed.

Kiritsugu felt a twinge of something. His wife was coined 4 years ago, her fate was already decided. Even if she, by some miracle, she should avoid her fate, she would only live a year or two afterwards before the wear on her body ended her life.

How the Einzbern crowed over their achievement. A model as powerful as Irisviel, lasting for ten years. They treated her tragically short life as an exceptional feat.

Emiya had only reached the second story which lead near the family library on the when old man Acht showed up. A disapproving frown already on his face.

"What happened?" he asked simply.

Kiritsugu coughed into his hand and introduced, "Meet Harry James Potter, grandson of Charlus Potter, and the last Potter left alive."

Acht quirks an eyebrow, "While that truly is a disastrous situation, why have you brought the boy here?"

"Well I was thinking of adopting him."

"I can hardly believe no provisions were made to care for the boy, so what brought this on?" Asked the skeptical sounding Einzbern.

"I witnessed the plans for the boy, he was to be placed with non-magical family and raised with no hint of his heritage."

"So? That is fairly common in smaller families, even ones with great history have sometimes done nothing to instruct their children in magic until they are on the cusp of being sent to the Clock Tower or Atlas." The family head reminded Emiya of the great Universities for the Mystical Sciences. Most magi would only have mentioned the Clock Tower, as Atlas focused almost wholly on Alchemy.

"I know, but leaving a child abandoned on a doorstep in the autumn season without so much as knocking seemed beyond reasonable. I watched for a good 15 minutes between when he was first abandoned and when I lost sight of the door and no one ever came to look."

Kiritsugu seemed hesitant to continue but eventually pressed on, "I will also admit that the night before you sent me I was granted a vision by my family's crest. Its rare, but it has happened before. I interpret the vision to me that if I choose to involve myself in Harry's life that things would grow more complicated for me but the resulting life would be... better, for everyone involved. It seemed a worthwhile thing to take the boy in, no matter the extra chaos it will create, if everyone involved will benefit in some way."

Jubstacheit's frown grew sharper and more disapproving. "One would think that my great-great granddaughter is already boring you."

Kiritsugu held up a hand to forestall the two century old man. "Not at all, but she is an Einzbern through and through, having someone to raise as an Emiya will never happen, no matter how many children I had through Irisviel."

The eight head of the Einzbern scowled at Kiritsugu, "Raising the boy as an  
Emiya while married into the Einzbern family, you are talking about creating a branch family of the Einzbern! Such has never existed in the 1000 years of our family's recorded history. Why would I allow such a thing?"

Emiya stroked Harry's head to sooth the boy as he replied with his features tightly controlled, "You respected my skills enough to adopt me into the family, you respected Charlus Potter enough to regard his Alchemy skills and have concern for his status. Could not a child, raised to the standards of the Einzbern, bearing the best of both the other families, be considered respectable enough for becoming a branch family?"

The Magus Killer could see that glint in his eye, that desperate desire for achievement that marked his over two centuries of life. After several minutes of the old man considering Emiya and his would be son, Acht finally spoke.

"Very well Emiya, we will see. Go introduce your family to this newest child, I will make arrangements for the Alchemical Ritual, Assumption of Lineage. If this child is to be your son, then he will be your son in truth."

Kiritsugu walked out with the baby Harry to see his wife and daughter.

...

Kiritsugu entered with Harry and before he could even lay eyes on his daughter, he heard her light voice. "Who is that?"

Emiya knew that Harry could walk at this point so he set the boy down on the ground and formally introduce his family.

"This, daughter, is Harry Potter. He recently lost his parents, and I thought that my daughter might like a little brother."

"A brother, for me." Whispered the child with a sense of awe.

"More likely, he is for the whole family Illya," chided her mother.

"Gewls," spouted Harry while staring intently at the youngest Einzbern and her mother.

Illya leans forward and points her finger back at herself, "Ill-ya, Ill-ya" she states insistently.

_Hours later..._

Kiritsugu and Irisviel stood over the children, who after the excitement of meeting each other had fallen into mutual napping. Kiritsugu had shifting them both onto the couch, and Irisviel with soft smile on her face and deft hands of her homunculus origins and the practice of motherhood, shifted the children so the were holding each other, without disturbing their slumber.

She stepped back to admire her work. "I wish I could remember them this way forever," she murmured wistfully.

Without a word Emiya pulled out one of his high caliber surveillance cameras and snapped a few pictures before pocketing it again.

"Iri, is this situation acceptable to you," Emiya began. "I, who felt too impure to touch our daughter, would ask you to accept another child, one who will be no blood of yours.."

"Stop Kiri, of course it is fine. It gladdens me to see you moved to such a humane act as this. It brings me hope that Illya will have a little brother, one who will bear your blood in a way that even Illya does not. They will look after each other as family should." Tears seemed to enter Irisviel's eyes, "I am so glad they will have each other and that you will have the two of them when I am gone."

Expression unchanging, Kiritsugu turned to look at his wife. "For you to be gladdened by my Humanity. What an ironic situation."

He turned to leave the room. "Watch over them, I will prepare a room for Harry."

Irisviel's gaze followed him until he left the room, the soft smile never left her face as she turned back to Harry. 'Our son...' she whispered.

_Later..._

Put forth effort in the north, relax your poise in the south

Lift you scepter towards the west, lower your gaze from the ever lasting dark.

Turn the tower to the east, raise the goblet and tilt toward the ever radiant.

Cast off a long lost ray, and bring forth a chest from the shallows.

On a new shore find the way, by contract of Reingauld.

Old man Acht finished the the aria of the ritual and the transmutation circle that Emiya was sitting in with Harry in his lap flared to life with brilliant azure light. Parts of the circle shifted and part of the symbology upon it turned around the center while rest remain stationary. The moving bits seemed to fold in on themselves collapsing towards the center as the catalysts designed to empower the ritual consumed themselves in the stationary part of the circle. A light rose around Emiya and Harry blotting out all view of them, until the circle itself faded away and the light dimmed into nothingness.

Emiya looked over at the eighth Einzbern head, "Well that certainly felt odd."

"Nothing compared to what it felt like from his perspective, in fact I don't give it long before..."

"Aiaiaiaiaih!" screamed Harry.

"Something like that happens," finished old man Acht.

Emiya lifted Harry up patting them on the back, "Shush now, hush now musuko, hush my dear son." Emiya buried his face in his newly made son's shoulder and hoped no one would notice the tears in his eye as he kept making calming noises.

He had just about gotten him calmed down when Illya burst into the room, followed more sedately by Irisviel.

"Well, well, well?" excitedly asks his daughter.

Kiritsugu turned to them presenting Harry as best he could, "May I present Harry Emiya, scion of House of Potter, and now, well and truly, your little brother."

Illya squealed and ran towards Harry, grabbing him in her arms as she twirled him around in a dramatic welcoming hug. At least that looks like its what she was trying to do. The actual actions look more like a haphazard crash with the children somehow both landing on top of each other at the same time. He could only hope that it was the result of physics having less application in the home of a family of magi.

While the children were laughing it up, Irisviel still moved in to separate them before laughter became tears.

Jubstachteit closed in on Harry, who was now wrapped up in Irisviel's arms as Illya has wound up with Kiritsugu. Acht placed a hand on Harry's head and invoke his diagnostic magic.

"Well, what is verdict?" asked Emiya of his new son.

"Hmm, well it definitely worked. Where as before he had something that might have been a magic circuit one day, if he was lucky. He now he has 35 solid circuits, 27 will come easily, the other 8 will need a little coaxing, but nothing we are not well experienced with in this family."

An odd, thoughtful look crossed Acht's face. "Odd though, even before the procedure he had a tremendous Od, and it went up some during the procedure. He had a whole 10 units, now 15."

Irisviel chimed in, "Oh is that so odd, it's sounds low if anything."

Acht and Kiritsugu both turn and give Irisviel a simultaneous incredulous look.

"What, that is lower than average for a magus, and Illya had that much at one," Irisviel defended.

"Iri, 15 od is low average for an adult magus, and you and Illya were engineered to boost your power," Kiritsugu started.

The old head also added in his piece. "Quite right, unless Harry has been through some similar manipulations he should have less than five at one year old, even from a magus family," continued Acht.

"And if he was engineered, why would he be so lacking in magic circuits?" finished Kiritsugu.

"Indeed, as it stands, if his development continues as it should, than he will have nearly a homunculus's power reserve and a fairly decent amount of circuits. Quite a bit of potential he has there." You could almost see the old man's eyes, desperate for achievement linked to his family, gleam.

"Ah, about that potential, could we talk about something privately?" asked Emiya.

Acht seems to consider this a moment. "Hmm, come to my office."

Kiritsugu followed Acht to an office space.

Jubstacheit takes a seat at his desk and gestures an offer for Kiritsugu to sit on the other side. When he is sitting. "What do you need, Emiya?"

Emiya began, hoping he was persuasive enough to secure help with minimal revealing of secrets. "As you are no doubt aware I only received a fifth of my family's crest, and none of research and spell notes concerning it. As Harry is now biologically compatible he can inherit it. As I am too old anyway, and as the Mage Association despises me as the Magus Killer, they would never pass it on to me. But at the behest of the Einzbern family they may be willing to pass it onto the next heir, Harry."

Jubstachteit assumed what Emiya called his scheming pose for a minute before stating, "Since we have already discussed Harry becoming a branch family member as a function of having the best the Emiya have to offer, it only makes sense to procure the crest and make sure the boy can benefit the family with your forefather's previous work."

"Add the fact that you will have a chance to review the notes on your crest that may make you more effective is just another benefit." Acht shifted his posture to look at Emiya more directly. "Very well, I will look into it and try to secure the rest of the Emiya crest and any research concerning it."

'And what family would pass up the chance to add a second Crest holder and generations of family research to someone who will be beholden to said family,' Emiya thought bitterly to himself.

_Headmaster's office at Hogwarts._

Dumbledore looked at the silver device that had just started working with a pleased smile and a twinkle in his eye. The little contraption indicating that Harry was at home with a blood relative that loved him. He had been worried that it had taken so long, but apparently Lily's sister had finally found a place for her nephew in her heart.

'As long as Harry considers himself at home with a blood relative the wards placed on Number 4 Privet Drive will be an unbreach-able fortress,' Dumbledore thought to himself.

'Love truly is the greatest magic of all.'

_Nine months later..._

_Most magi upon learning of the powers of Emiya Crest would believe it provides a form of time manipulation. The less ignorant will realize that it actually invokes a reality marble. Indeed the power of the Crest is to call upon a pact made with the Aeon, Gloriana Temporae, and invoke its reality marble: Arcadia, Kingdom of Enchantment, abode of the Fae, and realm of Illusion and Constant Change._

_The first head of the Emiya family was a master of Astral travel. On one of his journeys he encountered Gloriana Temporae. What occurred is not recorded, but the end result was a pact that allows the holder to invoke the power of the Aeon's reality marble within a prepared bounded field. After that he took the name Emiya and began this family to promote the improvement of the Crest over the generations. The current holder of the Emiya Crest is considered the pact holder, or Oracle as the Aeon refers to it, though my studies indicate anyone with Emiya blood may use the bounded fields prepared by the Oracle to a limited extant. As you should know by now, a reality marble is the alien common sense of beings with inhuman perceptions, like gods, demons, elementals and magi who have driven themselves nearly insane. This is the great advantage of our family, the capacity to use and study a reality marble without the risk of self-destruction or insanity inducing research and experiments._

_However the family's ability to invoke Arcadia, Kingdom of Enchantment is incomplete. Our summoning is limited by our relatively unimpressive family crest and the short amount of time, relatively, that our family has had to study the reality marble. In essence, each generation adds to the crest, allowing a deeper summoning of Arcadia, and each generation studies the reality marble to explore what it can accomplish. Over the generations we have even abandoned research in Astral phenomena that was the former family specialty to focus on Arcadia. As I have inherited 30 circuits, I have already converted ten of my natural magical circuits over to the crest and can already tell that I am able to call upon more of the Kingdom of Enchantment. The problem is that study of Arcadia is slow and it seems to take more time to explore a given level of completeness than one generation. I have begun research into increasing my lifespan in order to have more time to explore the wonders of Arcadia._

_One wonder of which I have been made aware, but cannot access is something called the Lunargent Thorn. I believe this to be a potent Noble Phantasm that members of our family will one day be able to call on as part of our Crest. My research shows it will take a least 60 circuits in the Emiya Crest and tremendous reserves of prana to call upon the wonder. I have used as many of my circuits as is safe, so I can only hope to live long enough for you, or your own children, to inherit the Crest, add to it, then learn enough of Arcadia to call upon the Lunargent Thorn in a ritual with much preparation. If you succeed the Emiya will become only the second mortal family in the world, after the Fraga, to be able to call upon a Noble Phantasm. At this point I believe the Emiya family can become more prominent in the world as we can make more use of our abilities that would earn us Sealing Designate status and just associate them with the Noble Phantasm itself or the trait that allows us to summon it, the later won't even be a lie, though we will have to conceal that it based on a reality marble to avoid persecution._

_I truly look forward to what you may accomplish one day son, I can only hope to be there to see it._

_-Emiya Noritaka_

Kiritsugu put down the scroll. Old man Acht had really came through and convinced the Magus Association to release the rest of Emiya Crest as long as it would not be applied to the Magus Killer himself. They had already begun the slow work of safely transferring the Crest to the two year old Harry. It would take three years to complete the procedure. It could be done faster, but was far more painful and risky that way. Harry would have the 32 circuits that he had been denied.

Kiritsugu pondered the scrolls that had come with the Crest, he had not been expecting those at all, but apparently the research of the Emiya was praiseworthy in the Association before his father had ruined it by becoming a vampire to extend his lifespan.

The scroll he had just read was one his father had written when he was first born, preparing his thoughts for how to teach his son, Kiritsugu. Shortly after this his father had begun his research on the Dead Apostles, super-vampires basically, and eventually became one. He had not returned to researching the Crest or even teaching his son about it before he became a monster that had to be killed for the world's safety. Kiritsugu had not even learned as much about his Crest as was in this short scroll.

He moved a bit of od through the 8 circuits he possessed and shivered. His ability to use Time Alter magic was simply a very limited application of a reality marble. Such was enough to earn him and his family a sealing designation totally apart from his father's vampirism.

'Innate Time Control, that's all I thought it was,' he thought to himself. 'What a fool I was.'

His only real use of it was Time Alter, the only spell he had developed that used his Emiya Crest. Even that caused damage to his body and messed with his personal flow of time afterwords. He thought it was partly caused by the nature of the power, his poor understanding of the crest, and the few circuits he had. All true but he had no idea of scale difference until the notes from his forefathers.

'30, using Double Accel safely should require 30 crest-based circuits. I've been using it with eight, I'm lucky Gloriana Temporae hasn't decided to unmake me for my temerity, and I didn't even know that was one of the risks until now.'

He would have to think about this. Truly he had so few circuits that he couldn't really use any of his forefathers research. He had forty natural magic circuits, way above average, making his little use for magic all the more insulting to most magi. Using his father's procedure he could probably add 15 circuits to the eight he had. Having 23 total would let him use some of the techniques he learned from the family scrolls and reduce the risk of using Double Accel. He also resolved to develop a 1.5 version of his Accel spell so he would have something completely safe.

When he passed it all on to Harry, his son's Thaumaturgical Crest would have 55 circuits. He would only have to use five of his own circuits to reach 60 and be able to try to summon the Lunargent Thorn.

'Well,' he thought to himself, 'time to get to work.'

This is one plan he did not want the Einzbern family to know about. Respect for Emiya and thus his family would only remain if the Einzbern could benefit from the Emiya mysteries without knowing how they were accomplished.

Kiritsugu left his Workshop and returned to his family, there he found Ilya playing keep away with her favorite toy as Harry tried to grab it. 'Sigh... Family' he thought to himself with an unusual wry smirk on his face.

"Ah! Pick him up, pick him up!" insisted Illya.

"Oh? Is something wrong with him?" Kiritsugu asked coyly.

"He's bothering me, and, and he takes my things!"

"Ah but everyone knows that sister toys are best," Emiya replied nodding to himself.

" But it's mine!" Illya was near tears now.

Kiritsugu was not sure how to resolve this without one of the children in tears but to his great fortune, Irisviel decided to take pity on him.

"Engelchen, please calm down. Your brother, he looks up to you. To him his sister is a hero that he aspires to be like as much as he can. He favors your toys and actions because he loves you so much." Irisviel was hugging Illya with one arm while hugging Harry with the other in a way that seemed beyond the agility that Kiritsugu could master, even with the brutal training given to him by Natalia and boosted by magecraft assistance.

As Emiya looked on his family the small place in his heart that had been slowly growing warmer since Illya's birth suddenly expanded. Not by much by the standard of a normal family man, but to an assassin and a magus who had been willing to kill his own father and adoptive mother when necessity demanded, it was a painful groaning expansion that shifted things in his inner world.

Kiritsugu made his way out of the room to his non-magic centered study and collapsed in a leather chair. He bent over holding his head as he sorted his thoughts.  
'I care about them so much, how can I? They are just more things I can lose. More pieces I might one day have to sacrifice to save others. Even now Irisviel is already..' Emiya shied away from the painful thought.

Kiritsugu considered Illyasviel's life these last nine months. The Einzbern had performed procedures on her ever since her conception designed to maximize her potential power in magecraft, but that caused pain and long-term damage to her body. Since Harry had joined the family and begun to take part in at least some of these procedures, Kiritsugu had argued more vehemently against the more extreme ones than he ever had or probably would have.

In the last nine months Illya had probably only received half the procedures that would have been performed, and half of those had been replaced with gentler or safer alternatives. Already she had grown more in these last nine months than she had in the previous year. It still seemed likely that Harry would out grow her though.

His thoughts were interrupted by Irisviel poking her head in and announcing that old mane Acht was requesting his presence.

_In Jubstacheit's office..._

"What can I do for you?" asked Kiritsugu

Acht interlaced his hands in front of his face, just looking at Emiya. "We finished with the pre-implantation diagnostics on your son."

A small curious look cam over Kiritsugu's face. "Oh, something I should know about?"

Old Man Acht gave him a cold look, "What do you know of the circumstances that gave him that scar?"

Emiya raised an eyebrow but showed no other expression. "His family was attacked and killed by a heretical magus they were calling a Dark Lord. The magus attacked him with a sure kill spell of some kind. Some kind of backlash occurred and the Magus bought it instead of the kid."

"Presumably they are attributing the success to the child right?"

"It was the justification for raising him with non-magicals, they feared being raised knowing about his 'fame' would corrupt the boy."

A scornful look appeared on the old man's face, "Fools, our analysis shows the story. We would have done this diagnostic when he first came to us but I assumed if they were giving him to non-magicals they would have taken care of these details."

"To think a child subject to such a vicious spell and not be thoroughly examined. Anyway, our exam proves it. The boy did not 'save the day', at least not directly."

"His parents?"

"Probably the mother from what I can gather. She knew she could not beat the bastard, didn't try. She set a trap, a trap powered by a massive near forbidden level ritual. A ritual powered by her sacrificing her life just before she would have been killed."

"What was the trap? Why did she even let this guy near her kid if she was willing to go so far?"

"This guy was too good to fall for something like that, he would have sensed it coming. No, the target was her son, and it was no attack. She gave her son a massive blessing powered by her very life just before she knew the boy would be attacked. When the heretical Mage attacked he set off the trap."

"This is the problem, the trap was in Harry's very soul. A battle was waged, all in an instant between the mothers's ritual and her dying blessing and the power and skill of this heretic. Worse, not only was the boy's soul damaged in the attack, but when the fighters quit the field, by dying, they left behind their weapons."

"What? I can maybe see the mother's blessing lingering, but what did the heretic leave."

"I can confirm that he was a heretic that deserved a Sealing Designation, at the least. He was attempting to make himself unkillable by splitting his soul into pieces and anchoring them into objects. His damaged soul could not handle the intense soul level combat and splintered further, when he died he left part of himself behind.

"Damn, can you remove it."

"Possibly, but after all the time the boy has to acclimated to his situation and a removal may damage him further. Remember the spells and energy left behind and powered by this bastard's soul fragment have been absolutely countered by the ritual, energy and complete soul sacrifice of his mother. If we remove one the situation will destabilize and even his mother's blessing might finish him off. Remove both at once and you are changing his soul so much in one go that it could kill him."

Kiritsugu was just about to let his anger show when Old Acht spoke again, "It's not all bad. These things are giving readings as proto-Conceptual Weapons. Created by skill and desperation, powered by parts of someone's soul, and nurtured within the soul of which they are the focus. Risk yes, but every magus walks hand in hand with death. How many magi in this world can claim such powerful Conceptual Weapons, especially ones tied so closely to themselves and so early that they alone will be their master."

Conceptual Weapon, a phrase that refers a an artifact with no physical existence. Essentially a concept manipulated to fulfill a function and imbedded in the being or object meant to use it. Most of them were artificially created and because of that temporary. Even when maker and user were the same they just didn't have them long enough to really get all the use out of them nor did the object gain much power.

As we all know the older an object the more powerful it would be. A naturally forming Conceptual Weapon was rare but when it happened they wouldn't fade. They would last the life of the embedded object, and if they gained enough power might survive the object into which they were embedded.

His son, at the risk of his soul being under a veritable pair of Damocles swords, would gain two such wonders, they would last his life and gain power as he aged. If he lived long enough he might even pass them to descendants. Even if he didn't since he started with them at youth he would have the chance to figure them out in a way no artificial Conceptual Weapon ever was. And since he was so young they would be older, and thus stronger, then any artificial Conceptual Weapon ever reached by the time he even really started to use them.

"What do they do?"

"We can't know so soon, probably won't until he is old enough to assist in experimentation. But I can tell you his elemental affinity and the fact is that each of these weapons has added something new. His natural affinity was for Wind, his mother's blessing gave him an affinity for Ether, with an emphasis on Holy effects. The Curse from his enemy, that we can say has given him an extra reserve of Od, and an affinity of the Sixth Imaginary element." Acht ended with a triumphant look on his face.

"Sixth? Isn't that the one that..."

"Is responsible for demons, summonings, desires, wishes, and miracles. Thus is the basis for the Wishcrafting sorcery trait that the Einzbern have carried and implanted in homunculi for years. Yes."

"Very little work would be required to grant him said trait, if this was a natural affinity. As it is not we may be able to come up with a work around in time. If he masters the weapon."

"I see, do consider that a good thing or encroaching on your territory?" Asked Kiritsugu.

"As we are considering him a branch family I would only consider it to the good. However their is one matter that we must attend to first. The soul of his enemy is the fuel of this weapon. Essentially that heretic has anchored himself to that weapon and will not be able to die unless all his soul anchors are cut, including this one." Jubstacheit gave a fierce and almost terrifying smile at this point.

"Luckily the Einzbern are the foremost experts on the soul thanks to our partially reconstructed knowledge of the Heaven's Feel. We will be able to modify the weapon so Harry can retain the use of the soul fragment but its connection to the rest of heretic will be cut. No using Harry as an anchor, or having free access to Harry's mind after we are done."

"It bothers me to say it Old Man, but I leave my son to your care."

The laughter from the old man did nothing to make Emiya feel better about the situation.

July 31st

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday dear Harry!

Happy birthday to you!

Irisviel and Kiritsugu sang the traditional birthday song while Illya and Dixie tried their best but generally made a muddle of things.

Being Harry's guardian allowed Emiya to call on the Potter creatures, which he had since learned are called House-Elves. But he had to be careful. For one, they would only help when he could convince them it was of service to Harry. Kiritsugu also had to make sure the Einzbern saw nothing or they would want to dissect the creatures.

However, helping to set up and than attend a low key birthday party was well within what they would do and what he could hide while inside the mansion.

He had called Dixie into their section o the Einzbern mansion with a small pop and let her know they were preparing for Harry's second birthday and when he had asked if they wanted to make a cake or something her face lot up with an expression that contained more joy than he ever recalled seeing on a human face.

He barely had time to react before the rooms of the house started shifting around, nothing overt but after a few minutes he gathered something invisible and fast was rapidly cleaning the house and as soon as he figured it out and was about to say something, anything. But it was too late, the cleaning finished and birthday decorations began to appear.

Hours later Kiritsugu was still shivering at the experience, but the living room was prepared for the party in record time with high quality food and cake. The elves had even made some simple party favors for Harry and Illya that he and Irisviel had not even considered.

The elves even brought some of what they claimed were his old toys that had lain abandoned in the house at Godric's Hollow. They had salvaged, cleaned, and repaired what they could as a present to Harry. A few of the toys were for babies younger than Harry now that most of a year had past. But a surprising number were perfectly usable.

Emiya was shocked at how many toys were basically low rank Mystic Codes. Potent magical tools, used to entertain children. He was beginning to think he did not understand these people as well as he thought, no magus family would use their Mysteries so frivolously.

So the party proceeded with a Harry and Illya covered in frosting, with Harry chasing Illya with his little flying broom. He had taken to the thing so easily he must still have some memory of using it before. Illya was so jealous that Emiya was afraid he was going to have to figure out how to acquire another of the things, but Iri managed to calm them down and make Harry share. Illyasviel wasn't the natural that Harry was but her squeals of laughter when it her turn let him believe she would get that good before to long.

They were switching again babbling with each other about what they would do next when he caught the peaceful smile on his Iri's face.

He sighed and resolved to ask Dixie how he might go about getting a new broom, even if they shared, eventually it would either break or they would need a bigger one.

_Dumbledore's Office on July 31st_

Dumbledore popped a lemon drop into his mouth and smiled happily at how strongly the blood wards were responding. Harry must be having a great birthday.

How grand, he knew that his estranged aunt would forge bonds of love with the boy but even he did not suspect Harry would become so happy, so quickly in the muggle home.

'Truly, the greatest magic of all,' Dumbledore thought quietly to himself.

**Author's Note**  
**Sorry for the delay, just had trouble beta'ing it. Some answers to review questions. About the name Harry, Kiritsugu is a world traveler, not tied to Japanese culture and not living in Japan. So while a fifteen month old might respond to being re-named there is no real reason to do so. Especially since his name is one of the last things left to him by his parent's and removing it would be cruel. Kiritsugu would of course do so if there was a reason but there isn't.**  
**Unlimited Blade Works. As you should be able to tell, Harry will get a reality marble but it will be Arcadia, not UWB.**  
**Nick Flamel, to be honest I would, but everyone does it seems, so I have to think about it.**


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